Untitled Head
Signed Print

Akin to Art Critic from one year prior, Untitled Head reveals a rigorously calculated composition. The work is thematically aligned with Lichtenstein’s cartoon heroines, while its formal qualities parallel the artist’s Surrealist series. The print presents a deconstructed portrait of a closely cropped female face. The artist composes her features entirely out of streaks of blue dots and white and bright yellow stripes. He frames the figure’s splintered attributes in blonde locks of wavy hair. Her nose is depicted in profile, and while her right eye stares directly at the beholder, the left one has disintegrated and is floating upward.

Black delineating lines are prominent in Untitled Head, along with saturated pigments and stylised appropriations of fundamental cubist and surrealist shapes. Lichtenstein takes advantage of the familiarity of these elements, shuffling the woman’s facial features around to rid the image of dimensionality. Utilising the flattened picture plane, Lichtenstein juxtaposes content versus style. The result the viewer is left with is an absurd scene brimming with humor and irony.